For the first time in my D&D life, my gaming group contains 17-18th level characters, so I've been reviewing the Epic Player Handbook for ideas on how to continue to challenge them. Over all, I am not really impressed with the whole epic concept. Once a PC attains 21st level, something magical happens and he sudden has access to +7 vorpal flaming keen swords of sharpness? Also, there are a number of the epic feats that I have a hard time rationalizing.
I'm considering disallowing the entire concept in my world, and coming up with save/attack/ability progressions beyond 20th level, but I'm looking for opinions, experiences, etc. for or against the whole epic concept. I'd particularly like to hear from anyone who played high-level characters back in the days before epic levels. Thanks in advance, and as always my apologies to anyone who has already seen this topic done to death.
VADER - "Apology accepted, Captain Needa..."
Well, I think it SOUNDS fun to play in epic level adventures, but we've never attained it. The highest we seem to go is 16th-17th level, then it seems to get just too complexe and then we stop playing for a while. After a month or so, we then get a rage to play again and we end up rolling 1st level characters.
I've read some of the high (epic) level adventures printed in Dungeon Magazine and, I must say, they just blow my mind. I almost loose myself in the complexity of the NPCs and monsters, with their thousand-and-one feats and special abilities. I would have to study intensively for hours just to run a single encounter. Is there something I'm doing wrong?
Anyway, the most fun I've had (as a player AND as a DM) were between 3rd and 7th. It seems that it's just simpler to manage and most monsters still pose a threat. The players in my game now are around 12th level, and I can already sense the uneasyness (did I spell that correctly?) slowly forming. I think I'm feeling it too... The longing for fast and easy gameplay.
(sigh!)
Ultradan
My players were approaching their late teens in level terms and I was considering going epic. However, I was already finding high level combat a huge drain on playing time and epic combat would just make this worse.
Besides, I found myself asking the question: Where would it all end? Do I want my player achieving their 50th level in Sorcerer? What significance can my campaign world have if my players are able to transend it completely?
Stick to 20 levels, mate. It's nice to have an ending and the prospect of new beginnings.
The system just breaks down at that level, IMHO. A lot of this has to do with the fact that the game was originally designed for levels 1-20 and it shows. If you have an hour or two to run each battle and another hour or two to stat individual NPC antagonists, go for it. Otherwise use a simpler game that runs very powerful characters more elegantly. Mutants & Masterminds is great for this, since it doesn't have to be about superheroes unless you want it to be. A high-level D&D character is definitely a superhero anyway. Many even have the cape to prove it. :)
As I said before, we play 2Ed and we have characters that have progressed to around 60th level. It is a logical progression when you have been playing the same characters for twenty years. 2ED didn't have the progression expanded any higher than 20th level (30th if you bought the High Level suplement), but 2Ed had a simple formula that you could easily expand to continue progression (Which we also used to expand abilitie scores). What I alway see when people start asking about high level campaigning is: What do they fight? In my world, the answer is : Everything! One of my favorite enemies is for my players to fight an adventuring group of comperable level. And don't feel obligated to do up a new NPC each time you play. Do up an Epic Level character of each class type and use them over and over again. Hell, use them two or three at a time. If I'm pressed for time, I will use one of my PCs and just change the name, especially with spell casters and psionisists. the other trick is ALWAYS make them fight at a tactical disadvantage. out number them, usually by at least two to one in bad terain. there are plenty of ways to keep it interesting.
...Anyway, the most fun I've had (as a player AND as a DM) were between 3rd and 7th...
I agree. For me, the limit is around the point that wizards get 5th level spells (10th level -- I felt the same way in 1/e and 2/e).
At lower levels the pace is faster and the consequences of any given single action are significant. Combat at high levels bores me as hp are slowly chipped away.
Jack
The most my party ever got was about 16-17 level and it did start getting way to complicated for us to play. We quickly got bored and rolled up new characters. Though there will always be a special place in my heart for Taz'dorl, the Half silver dragon/drow fighter/sorcerer/dragon disciple. But I'm also having fun with my new character: Deacon the halfling rogue. I think I'm going to take a few levels in wizard and make him an arcane trickster.
A bit from my Hoarde.
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
|
For the first time in my D&D life, my gaming group contains 17-18th level characters, so I've been reviewing the Epic Player Handbook for ideas on how to continue to challenge them. Over all, I am not really impressed with the whole epic concept. Once a PC attains 21st level, something magical happens and he sudden has access to +7 vorpal flaming keen swords of sharpness? Also, there are a number of the epic feats that I have a hard time rationalizing.
I'm considering disallowing the entire concept in my world, and coming up with save/attack/ability progressions beyond 20th level, but I'm looking for opinions, experiences, etc. for or against the whole epic concept. I'd particularly like to hear from anyone who played high-level characters back in the days before epic levels. Thanks in advance, and as always my apologies to anyone who has already seen this topic done to death.
I played a 1st edition campaign up to around 25th-level using the Bloodstone modules. If I remember correctly, in 1st edition, some abilities topped out at 20th level and didn't increase beyond that.
Since epic level spells are complicated, I suppose you could simply stop all class abilities at 20th level. Just allow PCs to gain new feats (with a few epic options thrown in), skill points, and ability increases.
Or, you could simply set 20th level as a max for any class and require multiclassing past 20 levels in a single class. Perhaps the gods set a cap on mortal power, but allow for diversity. A 20th wizard might have fun taking on classes as a fighter and expanding what he knows. Or he could try out a prestige class he likes but wasn't willing to give up caster and spell levels for.
What I did was start a new campaign at 1st level, but plan to include epic in it from the first adventure (including a clue that points to the CR 34+ big bad guy). The Epic Level Handbook has replacement tables for cities to include epic level characters. I simply built my world assuming epic is simply part of the setting.
Most of the epic critters are across a mountain range in a ruined empire, but a few are lurking here and there, mostly held in check (till something goes wrong) by other epic creatures (like leshay and elder treants). That same ruined empire reduced the number and power of epic creatues simply because many powerful beings died when it fell and a lot of magic was lost.
I'm topping it out at 36th level. High enough to get through and epic prestige class, low enough to be reasonable, and resonants nicely with the old D&D Cyclopedia cap of 36th level.
|
For the first time in my D&D life, my gaming group contains 17-18th level characters, so I've been reviewing the Epic Player Handbook for ideas on how to continue to challenge them. Over all, I am not really impressed with the whole epic concept. Once a PC attains 21st level, something magical happens and he sudden has access to +7 vorpal flaming keen swords of sharpness? Also, there are a number of the epic feats that I have a hard time rationalizing.
I'm considering disallowing the entire concept in my world, and coming up with save/attack/ability progressions beyond 20th level, but I'm looking for opinions, experiences, etc. for or against the whole epic concept. I'd particularly like to hear from anyone who played high-level characters back in the days before epic levels. Thanks in advance, and as always my apologies to anyone who has already seen this topic done to death.
I did a special adventure for characters that the group remembered fondly and created them at 30th level. Mostly as a test but also for fun. This was my experience:
They don't "suddenly" have access to huge epic weapons. A +7 vorpal keen weapon etc. seems a bit much for a 21st level character, but maybe not for a 40th level character. The XP cost to create the item alone would make it difficult at best to make (by my calculation, it should have a base cost of 3,920,000 gp and therefore an XP cost of 156,000 XP -- 21st level characters have a total of 210,000 xp and that is not "extra" xp). As a DM, if you continue running epic levels for a while (a difficult proposition in my opinion) pay close attention to the "starting equipment values" table (or whatever it is called) and really try to keep the characters fairly close to those limits.
The adventure that I was running was VERY combat intensive and it took a long time to run. Take a look at the articles in dragon on how to speed up combat to assist people, but rolling 25d6 and adding the result takes a while. One of the PCs was a 30th level ranger who had 9 attacks a round. It does seem to get a little silly at really high levels, but what else would really high level characters be able to do?
If you have a lot of high level NPCs in combat, you will quickly find yourself overwhelmed with all the different options that every creature or character can do.
The other thing to be ready for is the large amount of damage that the players (and NPCs) will be able to dish out. At 30th level, every character had the possibility of doing around 150 points of damage every round. With four PCs, that equates to around 600 points a round. Usually my creatures didn't last more than two rounds, but even those two rounds ended up lasting at least 30 minutes to an hour of playing time.
I really liked epic level concepts and would like to do it again, but here is my suggestion -- go to 21st or 22nd level for the characters and give them a taste of the epic level life. Go and create new characters (apprentices of the epic level characters maybe?) and let them roll 1d4 points of damage a round (maybe) for a while. Have them or you come up with backgrounds on what their epic characters have been doing and revisit the epic characters 1 to 5 levels higher than you left them off at.
A few other things to keep in mind. While a lot of the epic feats seem to be a bit powerful, most of them have fairly steep requirements -- 30 ranks in Knowledge Arcana for instance can only be reached at 27th level (I believe) minimum -- so they won't have access to those for a while.
Feat progression and skill progression and hit points is normal for levels after 20th. They might be able to get some bonus feats based on the appropriate tables, but most often it doesn't come into play at 21st level. Save progression and to hit progression is different and you should make sure that you look at the "behind the scenes" for it to make sense why they did that.
Part of the question that you kind of have to ask yourself if you continue playing an epic level campaign for an extended period of time is "How do normal people live?". If your world has a new creature every week that can do 200 points of damage to 3 city blocks every other round there most likely wouldn't be any 2nd level experts left alive after a while.
In my opinion, Epic can be fun, but it really needs to be reserved for "The universe is in danger and only the PCs can stop/save it!"
Good luck with it.
I am currently playing in a campaign that's at 25th level (we started at 1st) and I have DM'd "the Quicksilver Hourglass" (30th-level). In my experience, the challenges with running and/or playing an epic campaign are no different than those in any other high-level (say, 17th-20th) campaign. Sure, it can be complicated. Sure, combat takes a long time. However, as long as DM's storytelling is strong and interesting and the players have a good handle on the rules and their characters' options, it's exactly as fun as playing D&D 3.5 at any other level. When we first starting experimenting with epic play, my whole group expected (heck, some of us wanted) to find that the system was broken, blah blah blah. Wasn't the case, in our experience. Works pretty darned well.
Sounds like maybe you don't really *want* to play at epic levels, though. If that's the case, I'm sure you won't have a good time. High-level play is not fun for many people, and should just be avoided if you/your group won't enjoy.
I'm a strong proponent of campaigns with a highly developed story line, and thus a clear ending. "You've saved the world, it's over, time to retire." Then the DM can, more or less, determine what level the party will reach and not have to plan beyond that (I try to make mine span out as close to 20th as possible, though our group has never actually come close).
This solves many logic problems about epic characters in the world. Although the issue can generally be resolved for most people with a little thought, there is a large part of the gaming population out there that wonder where all these epic creatures come from all of a sudden. I personally think it trivializes things like balors and pit fiends when there are suddenly a bunch of things out there that make them about as threatening as a goblin by comparison. I LIKE balors and pit fiends being the among the most powerful non-unique beings in the multiverse.
You don't run into these problems if the DM sets up a clear end point for the campaign, and thus closely monitors (and limits) epic characters (generally by stopping things before they go that far). I know that if I ever actually stated this point to my players, they'd probably resent it, but nothing says you have to present it to them, and the truth is, they get bored of playing a character after a while and want to start something new. And the DM has the same problem. He wants to try a new low-level scenario, or a new world threatening plot that spans from low to high levels. So you start a new campaign.
Now, all that rambling about my personal views probably didn't help you much, so try this: If it's possible, set up a finally campaign arc to take them to 20th level (give or take), and end the campaign and start a new one. A fun tactic is to set up the characters as important NPCs in the world, and then let the players meet their old avatars at some point, and realize that they made a real difference.
Thanks, everyone!
After four years of playing, my current campaign has been in the epic levels for the last year or so. It's been an amazing ride, using my own dungeons and modules along with the githyanki incursion campaign and the Return to the Tomb of Horrors through the upper teens and early 20s. They sley Bazim Gorag, Vlaakith (leading an assault on Tunarath itself), drove off Acererak, and are currently battling through Skullrot (I moved it to the Barrens of Doom and Despair). They seek a cohort captured by a half-fiend vampiric epic sorcerer/blood magus... It's been wonderful.
The elf wizard is always cloaked in dozens of spells, and uses time stop frequently to "re-buff." His evocation spells are horribly powerful, especially when he uses an empowered admixed chain lightning (admixing sonic) with a spell enhancer.
The human cleric of Mystra typically has his AC in the upper 50s with spells and feats. He's a powerful combatant and an infinitely reliable healer. With the spell and magic domains, he's capable of casting almost any spell.
The human barbarian/fighter/champion of Gwynwarhyf is a towering iron giant of destruction. The very sight of him raging causes almost everything that sees him to be shaken. Nothing survives his full attack. In fact, last Sunday he killed a pit fiend with his second attack: a devastating critical.
The gnome rogue/sorcerer/arcane trickster rolls hide checks in the 60s and 70s, can fire four spells in a round (two multispell feats), and can open virtually any lock (he recently rolled a 43 to unlock one of Skullrot's locked doors).
The group sweat it out recently when the huge fiendish beholder in Skullrot trained its central eye on the cleric while he was being battered by two advanced flesh golems, but that only lasted as long as it took for the gnome to maneuver and waste the eye tyrant with four scortching ray spells, the first one being a sneak attack.
It's AWESOME playing in epic levels. I'm going to stretch it out as long as I can, modifying the Prison Tetrahedron module as the final big bang module. Epic levels are rare, and we've earned the right to really enjoy the power held by the PCs. I want to bask in that for a few more months.
Then the Age of Worms begins.
As a DM, if you continue running epic levels for a while (a difficult proposition in my opinion) pay close attention to the "starting equipment values" table (or whatever it is called) and really try to keep the characters fairly close to those limits.
I just wing it. The human paladin2/spellfire channeler4/cleric of Mystra20 wields a +5 intelligent holy avenger named "Glittering Edge" ("Oromea" to elves and worshippers of Corellon and Mystra). His secondary weapon is a +4 cold iron holy ghost touch light mace that casts dispel evil AND banishment each 6 times per day on a successful hit AND casts true ressurection 2/week. The human barbarian13/fighter6/champion7 wields "Garund," a +6 intelligent adamantine lightning blast greataxe that is often huge due to the champion's powerful gauntlet, which allows him to use righteous might 1/day, among other abilities and resistances. I haven't sensed any imbalance considering their foes.
It's true that battles last a long time. I make sure to prepare ahead of time with plenty of notes and tactics. It's best to avoid having to open a book to refresh yourself on the dozens of spells and abilities of each creature and PC. I often lose track of PC abilities and magical items, but my players help with that. I forget things at the table. It's hard keeping everything organized and ready in your mind. I completely forget about a certain NPC's "ace up the sleeve," or some other important tidbit, and I kick myself and move on.
During our epic games, I find my players stomping on certain foes. They're so powerful, and they work so well together, that there's not much that gives them reason to fear. There are rare moments when one or two PCs are near death, but it rarely happens. I'm fine with that. We're in epic levels. The group should feel very confident no matter what.
Pit fiends, white slaad, liches, balors, gibbering orbs, all of them fall pretty quickly. That might make certain DMs a bit irked. I mean, these monsters shouldn't be swept aside, right? It happens.
Feats like devastating critical, dire charge, multispell, improved spell capacity, and epic spellcasting are easily acquired. By the time PCs reach 27th level, those really powerful feats won't mean that much. Also, most classes get bonus feats after 20th. There are lots of opportunities for feats after 20th.
In my campaign, the epic level adventurers always take place away from "normal life," in some deep dungeon or another plane alltogether. Some wild local where those epic obstacles would be found. Of course, by the time epic levels hit in a campaign, the story should have the PCs in a believable place doing "believable" things within the realm of the campaign.
If it's not the world the PCs are fighting for, perhaps the souls of the PCs themselves are on the line, or dear loved ones (cohorts, planar allies, other companions, love interests) are in dire peril.
My suggestion is to get your hands on some epic modules (from Dungeon) to get a feel for what should be expected from an epic situation. The Handbook itself is also very useful in gaining an epic level perspective.
The concept of epic player characters is something that has needed to be addressed for some time and I think the book is excellent. I've always found the idea hard to grasp that when a character reaches 20th level they no longer advance and are "put out to pasture" for lack of a better term. Besides, in 3.5 you can easily create a challenge for any pc, no matter what their level. Take a peek in the BVD sometime.
|
|
I just wing it. The human paladin2/spellfire channeler4/cleric of Mystra20 wields a +5 intelligent holy avenger named "Glittering Edge" ("Oromea" to elves and worshippers of Corellon and Mystra). His secondary weapon is a +4 cold iron holy ghost touch light mace that casts dispel evil AND banishment each 6 times per day on a successful hit AND casts true ressurection 2/week. The human barbarian13/fighter6/champion7 wields "Garund," a +6 intelligent adamantine lightning blast greataxe that is often huge due to the champion's powerful gauntlet, which allows him to use righteous might 1/day, among other abilities and resistances. I haven't sensed any imbalance considering their foes.
Actually I just wing it with magic items as well, and I found that these really powerful weapons don't matter that much. I don't allow vorpal weapons at all, because I hate creating a really powerful bad guy and have it killed before he can take an action. In the first example, if you take away the vorpal property, it is a nice +7 weapon. Even if you take are really powerful weapon -- say a +10 holy shocking burst keen defending weapon it is still an epic weapon once the bonus reaches +6 so it can bypass that damage reduction. And the difference between +6 and +10 is only four points. Even if you assume a x3 crit multiplier with 5 attacks a round and a crit on every attack (difficult for even the best epic character) you are only talking about 60 extra points of damage -- and I would take the character's dice away and give him dice that are less likely to crit every time.
Basically, once you really start to get into the epic playing, there really isn't much that would imbalance the game. I would still try and keep the player characters fairly evenly equipped out of fairness however. No one wants just one person to steal the show.
I just really wanted to make a point that the players don't "suddenly" get access to hugely powerful magic items. They most likely don't have the XP to create really powerful items and they only get what the DM gives them. Again -- I wouldn't allow a 50th level character a vorpal weapon -- unless it was seriously limited ("Can only damage constructs that have 30 or more hit dice" or something similar -- basically a quest weapon).
One other thing to consider is that we incorporated the optional rule that characters can go negative as many points as they have hit dice. While it may not save them, it will often give them a little bit of extra room. I know that while the players are dealing 150 to 200 points of damage each round, so are the creatures.
|
I ran a campaign for many years that ended with the PCs being 27th level. I used the feats and monsters from the Epic Handbook, but honestly, I used almost none of the magic items from the book. The epic spells were difficult to obtain and cast, even for epic level pcs. If you know the characters well, base the challenges on what they can handle. Letting them have epic feats is a great opportunity for you to bring in tougher opponents!
Paul Zellem
If you have an hour or two to run each battle...
An hour or two? I wish!
In the game I'm playing in, one recent climactic battle took two five-hour sessions. Typically, with our seven players, each round takes about half an hour or more. And we're only 7th and 8th level.
Personally, I don't have much desire to play or DM past about 14th level.
-rob
You're right about magic items. It doesn't matter how powerful they are during epic levels. Balance is there.
I wouldn't necessarily ban vorpal weapons, though I'd be very careful about giving one to a PC. Before "Garund" was given to him, the party barbarian (named Rusk) had in his possession a +3 keen vorpal greataxe (I converted the Moilian Executioner's Axe from Return to the Tomb of Horrors). The vorpal axe claimed the head of a balor on a high summit on Tunarath, the demon having been gated in by Vlaakith and sent to kill Rusk (as one of many one-on-one battles I try to set him up with on occasion) and help crush the invading PCs, their cohorts, and several NPCs, many of them former PCs, angels, and metallic dragons. The resulting death-throes explosion was worth the vorpal attack, which still stands as a high point in the campaign. They did battle on the "nose" of Tunarath, and the balor's explosion was seen by thousands of githyanki. I slowed time down for Rusk (sort of a "shell shock" moment I forced) and had Tempus himself send two planar allies to aid Rusk in his time of need, riding Veiros and Deiros through the conflagaration. One of those allies is now Rusk's consort and "baby's mama." It's Gwynharwyf herself.
Anyway, now that Rusk has devastating critical, and since having been gifted with "Garund" (the axe was fashioned by an advanced great wyrm bronze dragon with 3 levels in dragon ascendant), he has set the keen vorpal axe aside in favor of his newest (and significantly more powerful) axe.
... In the game I'm playing in, one recent climactic battle took two five-hour sessions. Typically, with our seven players, each round takes about half an hour or more. And we're only 7th and 8th level.
This almost reminds me of our Battletech games. Although we have fun playing Battletech, the five-hour-ling battles is such a strain on us that, by the end of the fight, we all agree not to play Battletech again for at least a year. I guess the epic levels of D&D sort of feel the same.
Ultradan
Epic is awsome! my players are at 16 and cant wait. If you want to find out were epic monsters come from, check out my thread epic adventure hooks. Also, if you want to try and do an epic adventure, if your PC has a secret, in one adventure your PC could be psinicly attacked by mind flayers. He will be knocked out and when he wakes up, it is 20 years later and he is lvl 30. Give him and the party the lvl 30 stats and run them through an adventure, dropping in clues about the mind flayers attack and he finds out mind flars are probing his mind. Afterwards he can learn he was KOd by mind flayers so he can wake up and fight them.
Epic is awsome! my players are at 16 and cant wait. If you want to find out were epic monsters come from, check out my thread epic adventure hooks. Also, if you want to try and do an epic adventure, if your PC has a secret, in one adventure your PC could be psinicly attacked by mind flayers. He will be knocked out and when he wakes up, it is 20 years later and he is lvl 30. Give him and the party the lvl 30 stats and run them through an adventure, dropping in clues about the mind flayers attack and he finds out mind flars are probing his mind. Afterwards he can learn he was KOd by mind flayers so he can wake up and fight them.
Hey, that's a pretty cool idea Onrie! We could use this to try out an Epic Adventure (or at least part of one). I just might try that. Thanks!
Ultradan
Epic is awsome! my players are at 16 and cant wait. If you want to find out were epic monsters come from, check out my thread epic adventure hooks. Also, if you want to try and do an epic adventure, if your PC has a secret, in one adventure your PC could be psinicly attacked by mind flayers. He will be knocked out and when he wakes up, it is 20 years later and he is lvl 30. Give him and the party the lvl 30 stats and run them through an adventure, dropping in clues about the mind flayers attack and he finds out mind flars are probing his mind. Afterwards he can learn he was KOd by mind flayers so he can wake up and fight them.Hey, that's a pretty cool idea Onrie! We could use this to try out an Epic Adventure (or at least part of one). I just might try that. Thanks!
Ultradan
Tell me how the session goes!
I think it depends on how you want to play.
Creating a difficult monster for any level is pretty easy, whether that monster is fun or not depends on taste and how it is run and it can be simple or complicated (though typically more complicated).
But if you want to roleplay, court intrigue, counter plots against the evil doers, whoever they me be, unravel the mysteries of lost runes, create complicated magic items, build palaces, all of that could easily occupy the time of epic level sessions.
The last campaign I was in were we really worked on advancement it took us just shy of three years to get to 12th level and then the group of players changed, so a new campaign started, getting to epic that way - well I have never lived in one place long enough as a player to see that happen.
If you want to play epic level by creating characters on those lines then that is simply the context of play so it shouldn't be a problem.
I have thumbed through the epic level handbook - I didn't care for it. I think just extending the current progression tables looks like a better way to play to me - given balance and not having play tested at those level myself I would conceed the point to anybody who really liked the progression laid out in the epic book. I thought the epic level feats, magic, and monsters were detractors rather than elements that improved play though, hence my not buying the book.